Keynesianism and Political Ideology

Keynesianism And Political Ideology

A phenomenal ask and response from ilyagerner’s blog which was too good not to copy and paste (I have italicized a particular quote that I found very accurate and satisfying):
externalities asked: To get to the heart of events, what do you and other Tumblers think about deficit spending? Or more specifically, as Keynesian spending/saving seems to make sense, what do you think about running a deficit while the sun shines?

I know there are lots of arguments for and against and it’s certainly not as simple as saying that governments are like households and must live within their means, but in my comparatively short adulthood it doesn’t seem to have worked out well. What’s your take?
1. Polarization in Everything. I’m of the opinion that the majority of political disagreement about economic theory is driven by ideological convenience. That is, it’s quite possible for Keynesian economics to be complete bunk (though I don’t think so), while the moral argument for an expansive welfare state could be perfectly sound. At the same time, it’s possible for libertarian theories of self-ownership to be correct, while Austrian economics remains irrelevant to understanding how the world works. But in the real world, well-educated/well-informed partisans will adopt economic views that support their prior beliefs, so that liberals are Keynesians (and supporters of loose monetary policy) and conservatives rediscover whatever combination of neoclassical or Austrian thought (inflation hawkery included) is most convenient to their underlying views about society.
In the US, this kind of polarization applies to seemingly unrelated topics like climate change. The veracity of climate science doesn’t hinge on any particular view about government. Libertarianish conservatives might be correct about the ethical case for a nightwatchman state, but global warming will exist independent of that moral “truth.” But here again, views about science are dependent on partisanship, with liberals predisposed to “believe” in climate science and conservatives predisposed to denialism.
Point of this preface is to make clear that while I find New Keynesian economics compelling, this probably has as much to do with prior political commitments as it does any deep study of economics.

Full article here